Author

Writers Laughing: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir

Love this. What are they laughing about? We don’t know. But there’s also this:

Image Credit: Corbis

And this:

I read somewhere that Sartre loved to sing “Old Man River” and often did so at the top of his lungs. A friend of mine used to do an impression of this (baritone voice, passionate feeling, crazy French accent, some existentialist twists) that never failed to make me laugh.

It is an unconfirmed rumor that this is the source of the mirth in these photos.

Simone de Beauvoir, author of “The Second Sex” and who famously coined the phrase that has become antithesis to feminism: “woman as The Other” must simply be laughing politely to cover up her disgust at the oppressive nature of patriarchy being described by existentialist Sartre.